Where My Demons Hide
by syntheticpoetry
Summary: Kurt knows Blaine would never cheat again, but it hasn't stopped him from accidentally dredging up the past years later.


**Author's Note: Because it could always come back to potentially be used in an argument. **

* * *

Neither of them was even sure how the argument had started. But suddenly there were raised voices, one of which was spitting fire mainly to make his point and leave no room for debate. Blaine had barely said anything back as Kurt's voice jumped yet another octave, knowing it was better to let Kurt get everything out into the open rather than actually participate in the silly dispute. But eventually, every altercation always reached a point where Blaine couldn't let it go on anymore.

Kurt was stressing out over who was going to sleep where in their tiny apartment when they visited for Christmas, for god's sake. Blaine wasn't even sure it was _grounds_ for an argument.

"This is so stupid, I don't know why you're stressing out over it," he spoke up loudly only to make himself heard over Kurt.

"Stupid? So I'm being stupid now?" Kurt screeched.

"No! Not you, this-" Blaine sighed in exasperation. "Forget it. I'm not doing this, Kurt." He grabbed his coat, making for the door. He'd only wanted to leave before things got worse, give Kurt time to cool off before either of them said anything they would come to regret, but—

"Yeah, that's right, leave. Going to crawl into someone else's bed again now that everything isn't perfect for five seconds?"

Blaine actually stumbled on his way to the door, the words physically cutting right through him and he turned to look at Kurt, who had clapped both hands over his mouth, his eyes wide and fearful.

"I-I don't know where that came from," he lowered his hands slightly, whimpering into them. "Blaine, I—"

"W-what? You thought I was going out to..." Blaine sounded winded, as though he'd taken such a powerful blow that his lungs just couldn't provide him enough air no matter how hard he gasped. And his face, oh god his face—Kurt couldn't ever remember seeing that expression before. His eyes were dull, the life sucked straight out of them, and the tiny wrinkles around his mouth accentuated the depth of his frown.

Kurt's face crumpled at the sight. He knew Blaine would never cheat on him again. It was a thing of the past, something they'd spent months working through with tears and confessions and the gradual rebuilding of trust as friends. Three years later, it didn't belong in their vocabulary anymore much less have the ability to be used as a comeback during a stupid disagreement.

"No, I know you would never—"

Blaine didn't wait for the rest of the sentence though, didn't want to hear Kurt stagger over a thousand and one ways to reassure him, _No, I didn't mean that. What I meant to say was..._

He _had_ meant it that way, there wasn't any other way it _could_ be taken and there certainly wasn't any way Kurt could take it back. Blaine dragged his palms over his eyes, letting out a shuddering gasp, and calmly walked out of the front door.

"Oh no," Kurt quivered as he watched the door close quietly behind Blaine. "No, no, fuck!" He lunged towards the door and flung it open, "Blaine, wait!"

But he was faced with an empty hallway, his own voice echoing back mingled with the distant shout to "Keep it down!" from a neighbour on their floor.

* * *

_He thinks you would cheat on him again. He doesn't trust you; you knew he could never trust you again after that. Not fully._

Blaine hadn't had time to grab anything other than his short pea coat before he left and the wind was brutal as it repeatedly scathed every bit of exposed skin with icy venom. Even nature was against him tonight, he thought bitterly as he hugged his coat tighter around himself and walked in the direction of the Brooklyn Bridge.

_Why would he say that? __**How**__ could he say that? We were supposed to be past this..._

From deep below the depths of his self-deprecation and inner conflict, an old, familiar voice burbled up. It was one that he hadn't heard since his mother's death; one that had been stifled and stowed away when Kurt's presence had entered his life; one that Blaine was always completely powerless against on his own.

_You didn't really think you were good enough for him, did you?_

He choked back a sob; the tears that had managed to leak through were already freezing and embedding themselves into his skin in thin, icy streaks. He'd tried to forgive himself for what happened when they were teenagers, tried to fall under the guise that things could return to normal if they only tried hard enough for it. But here was this old familiar friend—no, not friend—_demon_ coming up to remind him of all of the things he'd been working so hard to get past. All of the insecurities, all of the undeserving feelings, all of the guilt and anger and—

_You're awfully close to the railing._

Blaine wasn't aware of when he reached the bridge, but it was true. His hands rested on the railing, raw and stiff, and his heart ached when the next thought came.

_Would I fall in if I leaned over?_

He had been finished with thoughts like that. Quiet little flashes that he never intended to act upon, but, all the same, appeared anyways. He never truly considered himself suicidal, but the tiniest glimmer of thoughts like these scared him more than anything.

They had first made an appearance after the Sadie Hawkins incident when he was fourteen. He'd look into the street and imagine flinging himself in front of a moving car. They'd only worsened when his mother died a few months later. Shaving in the bathroom earned him a glimpse into what other uses he could find for his razor; whenever he took aspirin for a headache he envisioned what it would be like to choke down every pill in the bottle. All while a slithery, unpleasant voiced hissed things he feared to be true.

'_They're better of without you.'_

'_It won't get any easier, just end it now.'_

'_Do you really want to go through the rest of your life with all of this pain?'_

But Kurt came along and it had all stopped.

_I'm going home._

He all but ran away from the railing, wanting to put as much distance between it and himself as possible. His face stung, he had no feeling in his hands, and though he wasn't sure he could bear to face Kurt there wasn't any other place he wanted to be right now.

* * *

Kurt was sitting on the couch, hugging any potential life that could have ever existed out of a pillow, when Blaine came home. He was rosy cheeked and trembling all over, snowflakes clinging to his hair, his eyelashes, his clothes—anything they could possibly lash themselves onto. Kurt sprang up and immediately tugged a fleece blanket out of the closet nearest to the door, knocking down a good amount of his shoes in the process.

They didn't exchange a word as Kurt helped ease Blaine out of his coat and draped the blanket over his shoulders. He took Blaine's hands between his own and rubbed heat into them, occasionally cupping his hands around them and blowing warm breaths until they began to return to normal colour.

As he scanned his eyes over Blaine, every question Kurt thought to ask seemed like the wrong one. He wanted to ask where he'd been. Had he been outside the entire time? Tell him how worried he was when it began to snow and he remembered that Blaine barely had anything to keep him warm. None of it felt right, everything in his head seemed accusatory rather than concerned.

"Well, if you ever need to audition for the role of an icicle I think you'll nail the part," he finally settled on, choosing to try to keep the mood light.

"I don't think I could last an entire run as an icicle," Blaine half whispered back, his teeth chattering, and Kurt was so relieved to hear the lighthearted sarcasm in his boyfriend's voice that he nearly burst into tears as he let out a strangled laugh.

"God, I was so worried about you. It started snowing and I just hoped you were somewhere warm," Kurt used part of the blanket to dry his eyes.

"I went to the Brooklyn Bridge," Blaine responded, his voice still soft, eerily more despondent this time. Kurt wasn't sure what to say, wasn't sure _if_ he should say something or simply let Blaine talk. There was something about Blaine's voice that Kurt couldn't pick apart, and it scared him. He'd never heard Blaine sound like this before.

"To look out at the water or at the Christmas lights?" Kurt prompted continuation when Blaine had failed to say anything else.

"Dunno why I went until I actually got there," Blaine took a step away from Kurt, hugging the blanket around himself as he took a seat on the couch. His eyes were unfocused, resting on the coffee table. "And then I had to come home. I knew I had to come home or else—or I might have—" Kurt could feel the panic building up in Blaine from all the way across the room. And when his boyfriend started gulping down large gasps of air he was immediately at his side, draping his arm over Blaine's covered shoulders.

"I'm not sure I understand, Blaine," he admitted quietly and carefully. He'd managed to find some lever he didn't even know existed within Blaine and broken it off in the process of flipping it up. This wasn't his Blaine; this was someone he'd never been introduced to before.

"You know I would never cheat on you again," Blaine's voice cracked on every word. "It was such a stupid mistake and I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, but I would never—"

"I know," Kurt immediately cut in. "God, I know. I shouldn't have said it, I haven't even thought about it in years. It just—this is going to sound so shitty—it just... slipped out."

Blaine made an ugly choking noise, his face contorting in anguish as he buried it in his hands. Kurt sat and stared for a moment, and the only thought to initially come to mind was, _Oh god, what have I done?_ No amount of hugging and reassurances was going to fix this.

"I thought I was going to end up on the other side of the railing if I stayed," Blaine mumbled miserably into his palms. Kurt froze, his hand beginning to clench Blaine's shoulder tightly as though he needed something to keep him grounded, and he stared dumbly, not fully grasping the weight of his boyfriend's confession at first.

"You—you thought you—were you going to—" he stammered, each false start to his reaction feeling less and less like the right one. "You wanted to kill yourself?" he whimpered sheepishly.

"No! I didn't want—I left because I didn't want to!" Blaine argued defensively, getting to his feet so quickly that the blanket slipped right off of his shoulders. "Forget it, just—I don't want to talk about—forget it," he spoke with animated hand gestures, his instability starting to peak again as another onslaught of tears engulfed him.

"No, explain it to me, Blaine," Kurt stood up and approached him, enveloping him in a tight embrace and clinging tighter when Blaine tried to back away. "Please, just explain it to me—"

"I'm never going to be good enough for you!" Blaine exclaimed breathlessly. "You're always going to look at me and see what I did and I—I..." Another sob broke off the remainder of his thought and he slumped down against Kurt's firm grip. "For a second, for _one second_, that was too much. I couldn't—I don't want you to look at me that way, Kurt..."

"Blaine, I wouldn't be with you if I still thought you would do something like that again," Kurt murmured, loosening his grip, and slid his hands up the back of Blaine's thin blue sweater slightly. "It was the stupidest thing I've ever said to you. I was mad and—god, that isn't an excuse for it—there _is_ no excuse for it. I love you and I'm sorry. I'm so, so, _so_ sorry I tried to hurt you like that."

Blaine sniffled, starting to calm down finally, as Kurt continued to murmur apologies and affection.

"You're absolutely wonderful—"

"Kurt."

"The best thing that's ever happened to me—"

"Kurt."

"And I can't stand the thought of ever losing you—"

"_Kurt_," Blaine said a little more forcefully and Kurt immediately stopped talking. Blaine let his head fall onto Kurt's shoulder and closed his eyes, letting only the sound of their unsyncopated heartbeats fill the room as they struggled to fall into rhythm with each other again.

There were so many things Kurt wanted to say, so many questions he needed to ask—but now wasn't the time. Now, he needed to be the pillar tethering Blaine down and keeping him away from the ledge. There would be time for talking, but until then he was content with gathering the love of his life in his arms and holding him through the night to the—hopefully—brighter tomorrow awaiting them.


End file.
